ERROL CASTENS: Wisdom from sages, founders and framers

With election day coming early next week, may I share a few favorite quotes for your consideration?
“Still one thing more, fellow-citizens – a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.” – Thomas Jefferson, first inaugural address
“The Constitution cannot protect us and our freedoms as a self-governing people unless we protect the Constitution. That means zero tolerance at election time for people who circumvent the letter and the spirit of the Constitution. Freedom is too precious to give it up in exchange for brassy words from arrogant elites.” – Thomas Sowell
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” – C.S. Lewis, “God in the Dock”
“I hereby declare, on oath, that … I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic … so help me God.” – United States oath of citizenship
“Nowhere at present is there such a measureless loathing of their country by educated people as in America.” – Eric Hoffer, “First Things, Last Things”
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,
“That to secure these rights, Governments are institute among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government … .” – Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence
“We shall not grow wiser before we learn that much that we have done was very foolish.” Friedrich A. Hayek, “The Road to Serfdom”
Contact Daily Journal Oxford Bureau reporter Errol Castens at (662) 281-1069 or errol.castens@djournal.com.